Node.js is a platform for building fast and scalable network applications. It uses an event-driven, non-blocking I/O model that makes it lightweight and efficient. Node.js can be installed on Windows, Linux and Mac and includes the npm package manager. Hello world code in Node.js prints output to the console. Node.js modules help development by providing reusable code; the cli-color module was used to add color to console output. The Node.js version is checked using the node -v command in the terminal.